A new poll from Monmouth University suggests that a majority of Americans don’t trust Iran to comply with the rules of the nuclear agreement with the U.S. and other countries.
Jonathan Easley writes at The Hill:
The poll found that 55 percent of registered voters do not trust Iran to comply with the agreement that requires Tehran to limit its uranium production and allow inspectors access to its nuclear sites in exchange for sanctions relief. Thirty-five percent of respondents said they would trust the country a little bit, while only 5 percent said they trust Iran a lot.
As could be expected, there is a strong partisan split in the poll. 52 percent of Democrats believe Iran can be trusted to comply with the terms of the deal while 55 percent of Republicans do not trust Iran.
Easley digs deeper into the partisan divide:
Still, 49 percent said that it was a good idea to try and make the deal with Iran work, against 36 percent who said it’s a bad idea. Here too, the public is largely split along partisan lines, with 61 percent of Democrats calling the negotiations a good idea, compared to 55 percent of Republicans who said they were a bad idea. A plurality of Independents, 49 percent, said the negotiations were a good idea.
Republicans in congress are against the deal and Obama will have to rely on Democrats for support.
Even so, many Democrats will find it difficult to support the deal if their constituents are skeptical about Iran’s willingness to comply.
Easley finishes his report with a quote from the director of the poll:
The pact with Iran faces an uncertain future in Congress,” said Monmouth University polling director Patrick Murphy. “A major sticking point with the American public is a sense that Tehran really can’t be trusted to keep its part of the bargain.
The poll was conducted with the following guidelines:
The Monmouth University Poll was conducted by telephone from July 9 to 12, 2015 with 1,001 adults in the United States. This sample has a margin of error of + 3.1 percent. The poll was conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute in West Long Branch, NJ.
